Christians are in the habit of looking at
"the law" as a great enemy.
Why? Because
it does not countenance the least sin.
It says, "walk before me and be thou perfect."
Is that not rightcould a perfect
God recognize or make a law in any way
imperfect? Surely not.
The reason men
count the law their enemy is that all have
sinned, and ever since the disobedience of
Adam they have been in the condition
known as "sinful flesh."
Prior to sin's
entrance, the law was Adam's friend, and
justified him; but the condition of death
obtained after sin had entered, and man in
this fallen condition of death finds it utterly
impossible to so live and act in harmony
with his Maker, that God's perfect law
would not condemn him.
And since all are sinners, of course none but a defective
law could recognize such persons as perfect.
The law of God has condemned all,
and every one who has reasoning faculties
seems to recognize that he is not perfect.

God has always had a law; even before
the giving of it at Mount Sinai.
Since God
always has been perfect, His laws always
have been perfect and condemned and opposed
even the slightest sin. Abel, Noah,
Abraham and all the patriarchs recognized
the fact that they were sinners when they
made altars and sacrificed thereon, before
attempting to hold communion.
Thus they
acknowledged themselves sinners and unable
of themselves to approach God.
How
different from the way Adam and God
walked and talked in the Garden!
No
sacrifices or offerings for sin were there needed,
for Adam was justified, or recognized as
right by God's law.
Thus we see that
what the patriarchs knew of God's law
condemned them.

The giving of the full law from Sinai did
not take away man's sin.
No, it only showed
it the more fully.
Did the keeping of it
ever justify any of them?
No; "By the
deeds of the law shall no flesh be justified [R410 : page 7] in His (God's) sight."
Was the fault in the
law, or in the people?
"The law is holy,"
and God's commands "holy and just and
good." (Rom. 7:12.)
The imperfection
was with mankind.
Since, then, the law
did not justify them, it must have condemned
them, even as it had condemned
the patriarchs.
Not any more really (for
there is only one penaltydeath) but more
loudly.
They were no greater sinners than
those of the Patriarchal Age who had not
had the full law given them, but they were
shown their condition as sinners more
clearly.
Why? That they might see their
own fallen and imperfect condition and
learn the exceeding sinfulness of SIN.
(Rom. 7:13), and by this knowledge be
prepared for the Redeemer.

We have seen that God always has had
a perfect law which condemned every sin
in every being, and how it was shown in
different degrees to the patriarchs and Israel, yet that the effect was the samecondemnationonly more fully realized by
those who saw the law most clearly.
Now,
how about the great heathen world?
Surely
a righteous law could not say: The heathen
are RIGHTEOUS; unless they live in harmony
with God.
And if you thought they were
living in harmony with God you would not
send missionaries to them.
No, they too,
are condemned by God's law.
And as
Paul says: These that have not the law
(the full written law as given to Israel)
"show the work of the law written in their
hearts," a spark of that principle of justice
and knowledge of right and wrong which
must have been an important part of the
natural organization of the first perfect man,
Adam; a spark merely, not quite extinguished
by the degrading effects of sin.

What did this spark of conscience do for
them?
It sometimes justified, and sometimes
condemned.
But if their spark of
conscience condemned them only ONCE
during their lifetime, it showed that they
were imperfectsinnershence subject to
the sin penalty, death.

Now, "all unrighteousness is sin," and
"sin is the transgression of the law," and
"the wages of sin is death." So we see
that the only voice of the law of God
to any who hear it, is: You cannot live. "All have sinned and come short of the
glory of God": Therefore must "every
mouth be stopped and all the world become
guilty before God." (Rom. 3:9,19.)

There lay the whole human family dead
and dying through sin, the law hanging up
before them, they admit, is grand, "just"
and "holy."
They were told that "The
man that doeth these things shall live."
(Rom. 10:5, Gal. 3:12.)
But O, they
could not do them.
Some tried hard, as
Paul describes, Rom. 7:14-24.
When
with their minds they resolved to "do those
things and live," they found sin in their
members hindering and preventing.
When
the striving ones found they could not deliver [R411 : page 7] themselves from death, they exclaimed:
"Wretched man that I am, who will deliver
me from this body of death?"
(Diaglott)
or, from the sin and death which has gotten
possession of me.
When he so cries out,
he has reached the place God wanted to
bring him to, i.e., to realize that he can
NEVER deliver himself from death and sin.
But some one asks: If he dies does not the
act of dying fill all the requirements of the
law, and could he not, after thus dying, be
raised up by God?
No, you err in supposing
that the act of dying is the penalty.
Man has been dying ever since sin entered
the world, but the penalty will not be entirely
inflicted until all are dead.
The penalty
is, that sinners shall have life no longer;
they forfeit their right to live.

But when will the law of God release the
sinner from the bondage of death?
Never;
if he could not obey the law while partially dead, he certainly cannot when completely
so.
Ever since the "fall" from perfect manhood through sin, man has been in a dying
condition, sometimes spoken of as already
dead (see Matt. 8:22).
And none but a
perfect man could keep a perfect law.
But,
says one, did not God send his Son into the
world to show us how we could work our
way up to spiritual lifeappearing among
us on the lowest round of the ladder, did
He not point out to us the way; he being thus "our forerunner?"

This view in many respects is held by a
great many, mostly "Unitarians" and "Universalists"
and like many other views has
a mixture of truth in it; but as a whole
is far from being "the truth" on this subject.
Jesus did indeed "lay aside the glory
which he had with the Father, before the
world;" He did appear to "set us an example
that we should follow in his footsteps"
and to be "our forerunner," but
more, he is also our "Redeemer" from thecurse of the Law. The curse of the law
upon us as sinners is death. How did he
redeem us from death?
To redeem is to
purchase back.
He therefore is said to
have "bought us with his own precious
blood."
Blood represents life"The life
of the flesh is in the blood" (Lev. 17:11),
therefore shed blood represents death or sacrificed life.
"He gave his life;" "He shed
his blood;" "He tasted death;" all have
the same meaning.
But how could his life
purchase or redeem or buy ours?
He as a
man, a perfect man, kept the perfect law;
and was therefore uncondemned by it.
Therefore the same law which was the sinners'
enemy condemning us to death, was
his friend and guaranteed life to him.
But
was he not born into the world under condemnation
of death, as much as any other
son of Adam?
No, he was a direct creation
of God"made in the likeness of sinful
flesh," but "in him was no sin."
If he
had done sin or been born a sinner, his life
would have been forfeited as was ours.

If born under condemnation as other
human beings he would have been as much
a sinner as we, and as such would have
been obliged to die for himself and consequently
would have nothing to give as a ransom
for our life.
But he was perfect, kept the
law, had a right to perfect human life forever;
"But for the joy set before him," by the
promise of the Father to raise him from the
dead a spiritual body, he renounced the natural,
human life, and gave it for our ransom.

But when he arose from death, was not
that a taking back of the price?
Yes,
if he had taken back the same life which
he had laid down; but he did not take back
the human; he was quickened by the Spirit"made a quickening Spirit," raised a
"spiritual body."
There is a natural, human
body and there is a spiritual body.

Thus "by his precious (valuable) blood"
(life), we were "redeemed from the curse of
the law"death.
To what kind of life
were we redeemed?
The same which man
had before death (the curse) came; the
same kind that Jesus gave for us, i.e., human
life.
But we are promised spiritual
life, and that we shall be made like unto
Christ's glorious body?
Yes; it is a part
of God's offer to us (during the Gospel age), that if we die to earthly and fleshlynaturallife, we may be reckoned as
"members of his body," and partake of the
same kind of life as our Head.
If we leave
our Father's house (the human) we may become
espoused to the Lord of glory as His
Bride.
In this arrangement, we are reckoned
as being justified to the perfect natural
life first, else we could not give ourlives. Being justified to life, Jesus says to
us, you can either have this natural life, or,
if you will renounce this natural, as I did,
and become dead to the world, you shall
have instead, the spiritual life and body.
"If we be dead with Christ, we shall live
with him." Rom. 6:4-8.
"It is a faithful
saying: For if we be dead with him, we
shall also live with him; if we suffer, we
shall also reign with him." 2 Tim. 2:11.
"Ye are partakers of Christ's sufferings." 1 Pet. 4:13.
"Joint heirs with Christ, if
so be that we suffer with him, that we may
be also glorified together." Rom. 8:17.

And it is because God thus waits until
the elect number, the bride, the body, the
Church, has "filled up the measure of the
afflictions of Christ, which are behind,"
that the "restitution of all things," purchased
for the world by the blood of Christ,
is delayed and yet future.
The Head
suffered and died over eighteen hundred
years ago; but all of the suffering and death of
the body are not yet completed.
Not noticing
this, has caused wonder on the part of
almost all, that the benefits and results of
the ransom have not sooner come.
(See
typical sacrifices, in the Tabernacle Tract.)

But would it be right for God to reckon
the one righteous life given, as a full payment
for the lives of the millions of sinners
who have died?
Does not the priceone,
for a billion or moreseem like a short
payment?

This is a reasonable question, and we
will allow Paul to give it a reasonable
answer.
He is a logical reasoner, as well
as an inspired Apostle, and argues that, as
God had seen proper to condemn all men
to death on account of Adam's disobedience, so he had a right to reckon the second
Adam a representative man, and justify to life all the race, in return for the sacrifice of
this one perfect life.
"For as by one man's disobedience many were made sinners, so
by the obedience of one shall many be
made righteous.
"Therefore as by the
offense of one, judgment came upon all men
to condemnation," (condemned to suffer the
penalty of sin, death,)) "even so by the
righteousness of one, the free gift came upon
all men unto justification to life." Remember
that none now enjoy life; our condition
is a dying one.
"Dying thou shalt
die" was the penalty pronounced on Adam.

The condition of perfect life as it was
enjoyed before death came, is what all
men are justified to, by the obedience of
"Jesus Christ who, by the grace of God,
tasted death for every man."

"For as in Adam (or by Adam's sin) alldie," so "in Christ (or by Christ's obedience,
etc.) shall all be made alive." As the first
Adam's bride was a party to the sin, so we
see the second Adam's bride is made a
party with her Lord in the removing of the
curse.
Oh glorious plan, of our all wise
and loving Father, and the exceeding riches
of his grace toward us, in Christ Jesus.

But says one, I thought that Jesus had
nullified, set aside and destroyed the law;
and that therefore mankind could approach
God.
Oh no, that was a great mistake.
Would it not be strange indeed if the Father
made a law, which we have seen was
"just" and "holy," and in fact the only one
he could give because perfect and holy
himself, would it seem proper even to think
of Jesus as setting aside and destroying
that "just" and "holy" law or in any way
making a league with sin or sinners?
No,
no.
He came to do the Father's will and
the law is the record of that will.
Jesus kept
it himself and taught the true meaning of it
to be higher than the letter, and that to be
"angry with a brother without a cause" was
to violate the command "Thou shalt not
kill."
No, says Paul: "Christ magnified
the law (made it larger and more minute)
and made it honorable," showed in fact
that, that law could not be set aside or
broken.
He showed too, by keeping it
perfectly himself, that God's law was just, and not beyond a perfect man's ability.

But we read, "Christ is the end of the
law." What can that mean?
The trouble is
you have not quoted the connections.
The
text reads: "For Christ is the end of the
law for righteousness to every one that believeth."
(Rom. 10:4.)
To whom is he
this? To believers.
How? Righteously,
not by breaking it, but by righteously fulfilling
its requirements, and we in him are just before the law.
Because we in Him are
reckoned dead to the world and alive toward
God through Himour new life, another
similar text reads: "There is therefore
now no condemnation to them which are
IN Christ Jesus."
Why are those in Christ
not condemned?
Because, since coming
into Him by faith they have received of His
spirit, and with Him can say, "I delight to
do thy will, O my God: yea, thy law is
within my heart." (Ps. 11:8.)
They are
then alive spiritually though yet living in
the dead body of sinful flesh which they are
supposed to, and which by the holy spirit
given they are enabled to "crucify."
These
walk not after the flesh, but after the spirit,
and to all so walking in Christ, there is no
condemnation from the law.

And in the glorious millennial age, when
all shall know God from least to greatest,
when, "the knowledge of the Lord shall fill
the whole earth;""the times of restitution"there will be the same "holy and
just" law, and under the "Royal Priesthood"
after the order of Melchisedec (the
order of an endless life) poor fallen humanity
will be helped back again, to that perfect
condition from whence Adam fell; a
condition in harmony with God's law, and
therefore in harmony with God.

There will be rewards given to some during
that age also; "for whosoever shall
give to one of these little ones (of the little
flock) a cup of cold water only in the
name of a disciple, shall in no wise lose his
reward." (Matt. 10:42.)
And when the
King shall sit "on the throne of his glory"
(during the Millennial age), some will be
rewarded for having ministered to the
members of his body.
"Inasmuch as ye
did it unto one of the least of these" (in the
throne) "ye did it unto me." Matt. 25:40.